Page 109 of Mark

My eyes widen slightly. “Esther thought she lost her wedding ring but we found it. She was worried about you finding out,” I lie.

“Sorry,” Esther grimaces. “Freya was helping me look for it.”

“Why have you been crying?” he asks, then glares at me. “What did you say to her now?”

“Nothing,” Esther rushes out, and it gives me hope that the arguments will stop. “I got emotional about the ring.”

He watches her for a moment, searching her face, before he smiles with a nod. “Maybe we should loop it onto your necklace.”

“Trust me, it won’t happen again,” she assures him.

“Are you ready for breakfast?”

“Yes,” she replies softly, getting to her feet. She glances down at me. “Why don’t you join us?”

I wave her off. “My stomach is barely coping with the fresh air. Breakfast might ruin me.”

She laughs. “We saw your Facebook posts this morning.”

“I still can’t believe your mum went up there and sang karaoke,” Danny teases.

“You should see her. She has on a pair of sunglasses, and everyone who gets too close or speaks too loud, is getting snapped at,” Esther announces.

I laugh. “I may pop in after and see for myself.”

“All right. I’ll see you later,” she promises.

I nod, watching them go before flopping back into the chair.God, what a morning. Do I think things are fixed between Esther and I? I’m not sure. Our conversation gave me hope, but there are things that were said and done that I can never forgive. I can move on, I can compartmentalise it all, and maybe even forget. But I just can’t forgive her. What I am willing to do is brush it aside. If this ceasefire is real, I’ll go along with it, if only to keep the peace. Despite what others have thought about me, I don’t like the drama. I love witnessing it or reading it online, but I loathe it when it involves me. This may be a good thing. Maybe now Esther will feel secure in her relationship and see I’m not a threat to their relationship.

Yet there’s a tiny voice in my head, telling me not to trust it.

“I’m buying handcuffs at the next island we stop at,” Mark growls, startling me. My gaze follows him as he walks over to the chair. “Is it so hard to wake up next to me? I’m a joy to wake up next to.”

I roll my eyes. “You had your hands down your boxers and were stinking out the room with your farts,” I point out. “I had to get out of there to get some fresh air.”

“Lies. I’m a gentleman. I don’t fart,” he argues, taking the seat in front of me. “What did Cruella and her minion want?”

“Danny had come to look for her. Esther, well, she overheard me talking to Summer and didn’t like what we were saying. But I think we hashed it out and things are good between us.”

His thick, dark eyebrows rise. “Is that so?”

I shrug. “Not sure how long it will last,” I admit. “Did you really cut up all her shoes?”

He grins. “That was Hayden.”

“And the bikinis?”

“Probably Hayden.”

I laugh at his put-out expression. “You feel left out that you didn’t get to do anything, don’t you?”

“I got Danny drunk and ran up his credit card.”

My eyebrows pinch together. “When?” Because aside from an hour yesterday, we were never apart.

“When you were up on stage singing ‘Like a Virgin’.”

“It’s a four-minute song,” I point out.

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